Death Wins a Goldfish

Death explores the magic and mundanity of life in this warmhearted vacation story. Having worked nonstop for entirely too long, Death is forced by the reapers’ Human Resources department to take an extended holiday. He is intent upon using his time off to grow as a person, so he travels the world, enrolls in college, attends carnivals, and even gives dating apps a try. What he finds ranges from the utterly disappointing to the transcendentally joyous—but it is always and ever a testament to the value of encountering new things and people. Rea’s work is purposeful scribbly and rendered in warm, friendly hues: lemon meringue roller coasters and coral-colored speedboats predominate. This is charming, but undergirding these cheerful shades is an earnest appeal to that most human of questions: how should one live? The answer, Death finds, is by going out there and doing it. He doesn’t enjoy parasailing, but he loves a tilt-a-whirl, and regardless, he was there, living. Readers may be nonplussed by Death earnestly searching for the meaning of life, but Rea makes it work. (Feb.)